Medal of Honor recipient Hudner discusses fateful day he tried to save comrade

It’s been nearly 63 years, but retired Navy Capt. Thomas J. Hudner Jr. spoke of trying to save his comrade as though it were yesterday. Hudner, the last surviving Korean War naval aviation veteran and a Congressional Medal of Honor recipient, was interviewed before an audience by Herald News colu...

It’s been nearly 63 years, but retired Navy Capt. Thomas J. Hudner Jr. spoke of trying to save his comrade as though it were yesterday.

Hudner, the last surviving Korean War naval aviation veteran and a Congressional Medal of Honor recipient, was interviewed before an audience by Herald News columnist and reporter Marc Munroe Dion at the Heritage Park theater on Saturday afternoon.

Hudner, a Fall River native, spoke about one harrowing day that continues to stand out in his life and his attempts to find closure.

It was on Dec. 4, 1950, that Hudner and five other aircraft were supporting the U.S. Marine Corps’ ground troops, which had been trapped by Chinese forces.

“The troops were fighting a fierce battle,” Hudner said.

The flight went about 100 miles to the Chosin Reservoir in North Korea when the plane being flown by Hudner’s wingman, Ensign Jesse L. Brown, was struck by anti-aircraft fire.

Brown, the Navy’s first black pilot, was an experienced flier. But the plane started losing power. Brown radioed Hudner and told him he’d try to crash-land.

There was 2 feet of snow on the ground, and temperatures hovered between zero and 5 degrees. They were flying in terrain with peaks to 3,500 feet.

Brown hit the ground near the side of a mountain. The engine was torn off and the plane came to a stop. The plane was bent. Brown’s leg was pinned beneath the fuselage.

“He survived,” Hudner said. “At first, I thought he had perished.”

Hudner, seeing smoke coming from the plane that “would turn into fire” made a brave decision.

“I made the decision to make a crash landing near his airplane,” Hudner said. “I couldn’t bear the thought of something happening to him in that airplane.

“Jesse saw me coming,” Hudner continued. “His words were, ‘Tom, we got to figure a way to get out of here.’”

With ice lining Hudner’s boots, he struggled to pull himself onto the wing of Brown’s plane, but was unable to open the cockpit to free Brown. He attempted to put out the fire with snow, but the smoke continued to emerge.

Hudner radioed for a helicopter and asked for an ax and fire extinguisher. Meanwhile, Brown showed no sign of pain. Twenty to thirty minutes later, help arrived. Brown was starting to lose consciousness. Hudner put a stocking hat on Brown’s head to keep him warm. He noticed that Brown’s hands were frozen stiff.

Hudner and Lt. Charles Ward tried for 45 minutes to open with the cockpit with an ax and extinguish the fire.

But their efforts were in vain. Hudner had a decision to make. The helicopter couldn’t fly at night with the difficult terrain, so Hudner needed to get in the plane or stay with Brown.

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Hudner told Brown he was going to return with supplies and help. He wasn’t sure if Brown could hear him.

“It was very difficult to get in that helicopter and leave him there,” Hudner said.

Bad weather kept the troops from going back to the spot where Brown rested dead in his plane for two days. Hudner begged superiors to allow him to return, but it was too dangerous because officers feared an ambush and more casualties.

The U.S. Navy bombed the crash site with napalm two days after Brown’s plane crash. They recited a prayer over the radio as they watched Brown’s body become consumed by flames.

Hudner, having hurt his back from his own crash landing, was grounded for a month.

Brown was the first African American U.S. Navy officer to be killed in the Korean War. His body was never recovered.

Hudner has been negotiating with officials in North Korea and in July visited in order to make a humanitarian mission to retrieve any of Brown’s remains and return them to his family. He has been asked to return in September.

“Jesse was worth every bit of effort,” Hudner said.

Hudner flew 27 combat missions during the war. He later served as a flight instructor in the Navy and staff officer. He was promoted to a commander and later to captain. Hudner ended his career in 1973 as head of aviation technical training in the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations in Washington, D.C. He has since been active in veteran groups and served as commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Veterans Services in the 1990s.

An Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer is to be named the USS Thomas Hudner.